Volume 6 Issue 12 December, 2016
❌Patients fake their symptoms in conversion disorder
✅Symptoms are genuine in conversion disorder and occur through unconscious mechanisms. Patients cannot voluntarily control it or fake symptoms like in malingering which is done with a conscious motive.
❌Conversion disorder occurs only in females
✅Though it is much more common in females, it is also reported to occur in males and symptoms occurring in male need not exclude the diagnosis.
❌Presence of a temporal relationship with Stressor is a must for the diagnosis of conversion disorder.
✅Though argued so for a long time, often a clearly identifiable stressor may not be evident. Recently in DSM-5, this criteria is removed and conversion disorders are regrouped as functional neurological symptom disorders.
❌Medicines are of no use in this disorder
✅Though not indicated as first line, often these patients end up treated with medicines and show considerable improvement in underlying anxiety, depressive and emotional regulation symptoms which are thought to be contributors for the causation of conversion episodes
❌Conversion disorders and neurological disorders are mutually exclusive, i.e., when conversion episode is diagnosed, neurological disorders are not likely and vice versa.
✅This is not always true. Both can co-exist and caution to be exercised before ruling out neurological disorders or rather always considered as differential diagnosis as missing a diagnosis can lead to grave outcomes
